Hall 1
Alexis Hall
Ms. Myers
English 10 Honors
04 Dec 2017
The Big Lie
Adolf Hitler once said that it is easier to tell a big lie than to tell a small one. In the
dystopian Anthem by Ayn Rand the government of the collective society in the novel is built on
propaganda to promote their big lie. The big lie is that a person is not an “I” ,but a we, a
nameless nobody only to serve their brothers, that one is always apart of a collective group, but
not an individual one. The guide to the big lie is repetition, the restriction of free will, and
language using totalitarian to control the minds, and life of the people living in this collective lie.
In order to have success with this lie one must only have a single main idea being
constantly bored into the people’s minds. Start this process young. Make the children be raised
by teachers appointed by the government or council. Have the children know that the Council is
“the voice of all men” in this society, meaning that the teachers helps project the Council's voice
for them (Rand 5). Have this voice teach that a single person cannot exceed past others, that a
person is a burden because they do not think or work for their brothers, but for themselves.
Forbid them to become an individual thinker and learner. Being taught that teachers tells no lies,
one will start believing the lies they teach. The teachers essentially raise the children everyday
for ten years into believing the big lie, that an individual is a nobody, allowing the big lie to
become true through repetition throughout the years. To use repetition effectively require these
Hall 2
citizens to repeat the same mantra every night that they “exist [only] for [their] brother who are
the State” (Rand 15). They must go to a play every night that promotes this collective idea.
Repetition is a powerful tool. If one is told something over and over again they will start to
believe that idea is truth. Hide the truth, and continually promotes the big lie to the point it is
burned into the people's mind and that lie will eventually become truth, and the real truth will
eventually becomes obsolete, or the new big lie.
The government's use of repetition helps promote their totalitarianism, ...
